


Hands

by Katydid_99



Category: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Genre: Gen, If you've read the book you know what to expect thematically, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intricate Rituals, Manicures & Pedicures, Nail Cutting, Nightmares, Pre-Canon, Schizophrenia, Someone has to remind everyone that Chief's actually the main character of this story, The Combine, Unreliable Narrator, and gosh darn it it's gonna be me, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 14:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katydid_99/pseuds/Katydid_99
Summary: Chief has a rough night. Harding cleans up the mess.
Relationships: Chief Bromden and Dale Harding, implied Fredrickson/Sefelt
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers: graphic nightmares and references to self harm, accidental and otherwise
> 
> Tried to blend Kesey's writing style with my own, so be prepared for that too...

In the night they tied my ankles with their stings and flung me around by them. Most of the time I’d hit the floor and then drag along it as the strings wound back up. Sometimes I’d hit a doorknob; a loose nail; an errant needle or other medical instrument left out- it’d sting as it pierce my skin, then ache as I’d be torn off of it. The machines with their strings repeated this over and over as I’d gasp and sob. I longed to scream, but I’d forgotten how to a long time ago.

It wouldn’t have mattered if I could, anyway. They had me back in bed like normal by the time the sun was rising, before everyone else was awake. The morning alarm rings in the Night Ward as normal. Everyone wakes up as normal. I keep my head down and dress as normal.

I study my body as I do so. There are skid marks up and down my arms and face, little crescent-shaped cuts in my palms and shoulders and cheeks. They sting and have left stains on my pillow, still tacky and half-clotted. Strange. They usually aren’t so clumsy. Stranger still is how the Acutes actually notice.

“Holy shit!” I don’t flinch as Cheswick hollers, but I see his chubby finger pointing at me from the corner of my eyes. “What happened to the Chief?”

Now everyone’s eyes are on me, a few even coming by my bunk for a closer look. It’s all I can do not to shrink between my shoulders.

“Jesus,” Fredrickson breathes. “I knew he was fucked up, but not the same brand as fucked up as you, Bibbet.” 

He gives Billy a playful nudge, but Billy shakes his head. “T-those are scratches. Not c-cu-cuts.” Of course he’d know the difference.

Sefelt laces his arms around Fredrickson’s chest as he peers over his shoulder. This way he looks like he might be his fellow epileptic’s shadow; hickory behind tallow. The brows on his pinched little face furrow. “Scratching isn’t really the aides’ usual style, is it?”

The others murmur in uneasy agreement as I continue to get dressed. I don’t realize Harding’s taken a seat next to me on the bed until he reaches out and grabs my hand as I tie my hair back. Now I do flinch, but his grip is surprisingly strong. He turns my hand over in his paper palms. He must be made of paper; folded intricately over itself into this delicate, fragile man-shape. There was another soldier during the war who taught me a word for that. I can’t remember it, but I remember how it felt in my mouth. Odd vowels that shouldn’t work together but somehow do, combining into a phrase as sinuous and unstable as the hands cradling my hand.

He flips it over and bites on the inside of his cheek. The Combine has planted blood under my fingernails, thick and red and all the way down to the beds. I don’t know when they had time to put it there.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Fredrickson swears softly, too stunned for his usual cynical quips. 

“He must have scratched himself in his sleep or somethin’,” Sefelt guesses as he hugs Fredrickson a little tighter. “Nightmares, y’know?”

I bite my tongue. It’s all a pack of lies, but they’d never believe the truth.

Harding nods once and stands, still holding my hand and raising his voice to address the crowd. “As you were, gentlemen. I shall take care of this.”

He still holds my hand as he starts to walk away, and I put together that he intends for me to follow him, so I do. Billy follows as well, scrunching his nose up in the way he does when he’s worried. He worries too often, so now there’s a permanent dimple between his big doe eyes. “W-What ab-about the B-B-Bla-- dammit!” He shakes his head and restarts. “We need t-to be ready for breakfast in f-five minutes.”

“Just inform our dear guardian angels that I am simply exercising my duties as President of the Patients Council.” He places his free hand on Billy’s shoulder, smiling one of his soft, closed-pink-mouthed smiles. “I’ll be fine.”

Billy opens his mouth, but quickly closes it again and nods jerklily. Harding takes the invitation and leads me back to the Lavatory conjoined to the Night Ward. 

I’ve never liked the Lavatories here. The walls were too white and the lights were too stark and unforgiving. It smelled overwhelmingly of bleach, too clean and sterile for what the room was supposed to be used for, like if you dirtied anything up you immediately get transported to the Shop.

Wordlessly, Harding leads me over to the sinks. I stand, curious but patient as he turns one on, checking the temperature before guiding my hands under the stream of water. He intends for me to wash the blood off, but I hesitate as he takes soap from the pump on the wall and messages it into my hands. He waits until I start the motion myself. 

I don’t look up as he lets go of my hands and I hear his expensive slippers pad across the tile. Neither do it when the door clicks shut behind him. I find myself unexpectedly distracted by the methodical motion of picking the blood clots from under my nails; mesmerized by the gradient of water gushing between my palms and down the drain. Redpinkgrayishclear.

I’m just turning off the faucet when Harding unexpectedly comes back. Why is he here? He’s already done his job. 

Behind me Handing sits on the tile and starts rummaging in a small tartan bag. An unexpected thrill rolls up my spine as I recognize it as Harding’s manicure kit. No one else in the entire ward was permitted to have anything like it. It took Harding himself the whole of his first year of residency, weeks upon weeks of psych evaluations and letters from his wife and generally begging to permit a tiny pair of fingernail scissors and a half dozen other tools I can’t name. The time it took killed the eventual triumph; the Big Nurse made sure of it. It wasn’t any sort of privilege or trust or strength to own this, rather it was a sign that he was too weak and timid to do anything with it. Of course he can have what is practically a knife in his bedside table. It's just Harding. What could Harding ever do? Poor little Harding…

This, however, didn’t take away from Harding’s ability to use this kit. Every other week Harding would spend a night shaping his nails into tiny pink seashells at the tips of his fingers. Billy would sometimes borrow his scissors, but there were many rules for him to follow. He couldn’t borrow them more than twice a month. He couldn’t take them outside the Night award or conjoining Lavatory. Toilet stalls had to be unlocked. If he had them more than ten minutes Harding would come and find him. Beyond that I don’t think anyone else has ever used Harding’s special damning important kit.

From the floor, Harding looks up at me expectantly. Even if I were actually deaf I’d know what he intended to do, and I don’t understand. This isn’t something that happens to me. Does this happen at all? Only for wealthy white women, maybe very young children. Certainly not for me.

Sensing my confusion Harding rolls his eyes and grabs me by the wrist. I bite my tongue as his cold fingers lock around my cuts, but I sit on the floor across from him. Something flickers across his eyes as he catches my wince and he opens his mouth to apologize, but stops. What good is it to apologize to a man who can’t hear?

Suddenly, he smiles gently and holds out his hands, a small thin metal tool balanced between two fingers. I stare at them. I don’t move and neither does he. Suddenly I realize he’s giving me a chance to walk away. 

Have I ever had this much choice? Not in the last ten years, at least. Maybe not even before then.

I give him my hand.

It’s odd. Not painful, but sensory and intimate in a way I’m not used to. Harding is like a little bird, pecking and nipping at the skin around my nails, methodical before he ever even gets to cutting them. 

The first one goes with a shockingly loud snap, loud and sudden and I try to scramble backwards. Harding’s there in an instant, closing the gap between our legs and holding my forearm, shushing and stroking. He doesn’t scoot away when I relax and he continues. The noise becomes less overwhelming as I get used to it- almost calming, even, as the rhythmic snaps and clicks echo off the white tile.

“You have an enviable complexion, Mr. Bromden,” he murmurs softly as he moves on to my other hand. “Your cuticles are dry and we’ll need to fix these cuts, but your skin’s very well maintained. I commend you.” His eyes go dreamy. “Grecian pottery with citrine inlay. A real romantic-era beauty. Byron would weep.”

Now I’m really confused. Harding’s never said a word to me in his three years of residency. Now he’s... complimenting me? Talking to me like I was one of those ingenues from the movies, offering a gloved hand to a gentleman caller to kiss? 

“There now-“ he sets his tool- a file, I remember from Mama’s vanity in my childhood- down on the tile. I look at my nails. They haven’t been trimmed in years, beyond the nervous biting habit that most of the other patients have picked up, Acutes and Chronics alike- the one thing we have in common. The transparent film of skin that creeps up on them have been trimmed away, and the ends have been shaped to little half moons. There’s no way the Combine can plant anything under my nails now. The thought comforts me.

Meanwhile Harding spreads a thin film of lotion across his palms and takes mine again, rubbing it in. The pleasant smell that breaks through the bathroom’s odor- lavender, with something bright and faintly acidic. Lemon? Orange?- is overwhelmed by the sharp sting of the cream going into my cuts. I try not to react, but I must have because he cringes. 

“We'll go see the good doctor after we are done here,” he says. “He’ll provide the proper antiseptics and bandages.” He hesitates, then reaches up and tilts my chin a little higher, his pale eyes searching my scratched face for something he can’t find. He has no map, no directions, not even a real idea of what he’s looking for. Just a rumor he heard from a man at the bar. Something just enticing enough to make the trouble of searching for it worth it. 

“What happened to you?” Harding whispers like I'm breaking his heart. 

He’s talking about the scratches.

At least, I think he is.


End file.
